URNs in SYSTEM declarations

Kelly Campbell camk at channelpoint.com
Wed Oct 20 18:48:53 BST 1999


We're using something similar to the URN. Basically, we just put the
filename in the system declaration, and have a EntityResolver registered
with the parser that knows where all the dtd files reside, and can return
them as InputStreams. This makes it so we can store the dtd's in a central
location on the filesystem, or in a database. For example:

<!DOCTYPE blah SYSTEM "blah.dtd">

This works great on xml4j, except it only works with one file. For example,
if we try to include another dtd with an <!ENTITY % common_dtd SYSTEM
"common.dtd"> in the main dtd, the parsing fails unless we use the full path
in the system designator.

Does anyone know if this is a valid use of the system declaration, and if
so, is xml4j just buggy on resolving multiple files?

Thanks,
Kelly
--
Kelly A. Campbell                       Commerce Core Engineer
<kelly.campbell at channelpoint.com>       ChannelPoint, Inc.
<camk at pcisys.net> <camk at acm.org>        Colorado Springs, Co.
Voice: 719-867-9324                     AIM: chptcamk


> -----Original Message-----
> From: Miles Sabin [mailto:msabin at cromwellmedia.co.uk]
> Sent: Wednesday, October 20, 1999 9:57 AM
> To: XML-Dev Mailing list
> Cc: Simon St.Laurent
> Subject: RE: URNs in SYSTEM declarations
> 
> 
> Simon St.Laurent wrote,
> > URNs are an acceptable part of the URI spec, but XML 
> > processors may have no way to resolve them to actual 
> > resources.  What should a validating parser do when 
> > confronted by:
> >
> > <!DOCTYPE myDoc SYSTEM "urn:itsSoObvious">
> 
> Exactly the same as what it would do if confronted by
> 
>  <!DOCTYPE myDoc SYSTEM "http://foo.bar.com/itsSoObvious">
> 
> if it had no way of resolving an http URI to an actual
> resouce: report an error.
> 
> Given that not many XML processors have URN resolution 
> support at the mo', I guess this means the combination of 
> URNs for DTDs + validation isn't a very good idea (yet).
> 
> Cheers,
> 
> 
> Miles
> 
> -- 
> Miles Sabin                          Cromwell Media
> Internet Systems Architect           5/6 Glenthorne Mews
> +44 (0)181 410 2230                  London, W6 0LJ
> msabin at cromwellmedia.co.uk           England
> 
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